With my background in mathematical statistics, I like to look at data to try to see what might be hidden in the numbers.
The latest round of quarterly earnings reports are being released this week. Beyond those financial metrics, I get to look at mountains of CRTC data aggregated from Canada’s telecommunications sector. Most headlines in the general business press and industry newsletters focus on prices, market share, and subscriber growth.
That’s understandable. Consumers care about what they pay; investors look at comparative data points. But those figures tend to represent yesterday’s news.
Buried in the tables is another metric that tells us more about tomorrow: capital investment. In Rogers’ latest quarterly results, capital spending in the 3rd quarter was down 46% compared to the same period last year. In the first 9 months of 2026, capital spending is down 27% versus 2025. Rogers reported “its lowest capital intensity in over two decades”.
While policymakers and consumer advocates should celebrate lower prices, investment has also been dropping across the industry. That should be cause for concern. The most recent CRTC figures continue to reflect a measurable decline in telecommunications capital expenditures, even as we face growing demands for investment for resilience, security and sovereignty.
This creates a profound accountability vacuum.
For years, the dominant focus of telecom policy has been somewhat myopic: price reduction. Policy makers pushed for lower rates and increased competition, treating quarterly affordability metrics as the ultimate measure of success. Let’s face it, lower prices make for good politics with favourable headlines on the consumer blogs – especially when the prices for just about everything else are going up. But, it sidesteps a tougher, less glamorous question: If policy makers are hyper-focused on today’s prices, who is looking out for tomorrow’s network?
Telecommunications infrastructure requires long-term planning and investment. Fibre deployment, wireless upgrades, rural expansion, and future-ready resiliency require billions in continuous cycles of capital spending. When investment capital dries up, the consequences do not appear overnight. Networks can coast on past momentum — until they don’t.
By treating affordability and investment as separate issues, policymakers are engaged in a dangerous sleight of hand. We see short-term savings by quietly passing the bill for network investment stagnation onto the next generation of users, businesses, and innovators.
Lower consumer prices are measured each month with the release of Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index. The price of starving Canada’s telecom networks — with stalled innovation, constrained capacity, and vulnerable infrastructure — will be paid years down the road.
By then it is far too late to reverse course quickly.
As quarterly results get released this week, keep in mind that the most important number isn’t what Canadians are paying today. It’s what network operators are no longer spending on tomorrow.
When that bill finally comes due, it won’t be the policy makers who have to pay it. What is hidden in the numbers should not be ignored.